PRESIDENT Suleyman Demirel has approved a minority conservative government that has sidelined Islamists' first real chance of power in Turkey.
Mr Demirel's approval yesterday reinstates Mr Mesut Yilmaz as prime minister after just over four years and paves the way for a parliamentary vote of confidence next week.
The coalition comprises Mr Yilmaz's Motherland Party (ANAP) and the True Path Party of Ms Tansu Ciller, who had been caretaker prime minister since September.
Mr Yilmaz and Ms Ciller signed an accord at the weekend to set up an alliance after inconclusive general elections last December.
The conservatives fall short of an absolute majority in the 550 seat assembly and have the grudging support of a left wing party in the confidence vote.
The Islamist Welfare Party came a narrow first at the polls but could not find coalition partners from among the secularist parties, despite a brief flirtation with Motherland.
Under the coalition's agreement for a rotating prime minister, Mr Ciller will take over from Mr Yilmaz in 1997 for two years. Mr Yilmaz will be prime minister again in 1999 and then cede place to a True Path Party deputy.
The coalition of the conservatives has been long demanded by the secular elite, led by the business world and the mass media.
They hope it will strengthen Turkeys economy weighed down by annual 80 per cent inflation and sluggish privatisation. But the nationalist Socialist party of the former prime minister Mr Bulent Ecevit, who has agreed toe help the coalition in a vote of confidence, opposes privatisation and the two alliance parties liberal, pro Western leanings.
Meanwhile, the Turkish ambassador to Athens, Mr Umit Pamir, who was recalled for "consultations" last week in the wake of a territorial crisis with Greece, returned to Athens and resumed his post.
Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war in late January over a group of islets just off the Turkish mainland.